Saturday, April 19, 2008

Simply "Naive" Questions About Evolution and My Shoulder


1) How can something as complex as the human shoulder evolve over an enormous expanse of time and allow survival of a species whose survival is predicated upon the use of a fully functioning shoulder? i.e. How does a species that needs a functioning shoulder in order to use arms and hands (taking out of the equation the necessarily chance evolution of arms, hands, fingers, blood, vessels to transport blood, heart, organs, cartilage, bone, marrow, muscles, joints, cells, and all the things that make up the human body that I have no knowledge of) to build, plow, plant, gather, hunt, hold, nurture, mold, shape, feed and eat survive?

2) Where are the intermediary forms (missing links) in the fossil record? Doesn't it stand to reason that evolving biological life on this planet would leave at least one proven fossil example of partially evolved creatures?

3) Can anyone explain the mind boggling complexity of a single cell and where that cell came from?

These are only a few of my "naive" questions.

3 comments:

Michael said...

1. Ah, which came first, the shoulder or the human? I’ll tell you. It was the shoulder. Shoulders, although not as dynamic as the human form you now sport, have been around for hundreds of millions of years. And then over hundreds of millions of years became what you now know as the shoulder. Here’s a link about the shoulder over time:

http://www.worldscibooks.com/medsci/etextbook/5412/5412_chap1.pdf

2. All fossil records are examples of partially evolved creatures. It also stands to reason that animals that evolved in some manner that wasn’t beneficial to life don’t end up in our fossil records because they were preyed on by stronger, better evolved creatures. Here’s another example: humans are examples of partially evolved creatures. I’m assuming you were born with both an appendix and a coccyx. Both are vestigial remnants of previous ancestors (ones with extra intestines and tails, presumably. The reason there are so many gaps in the time line created by fossil record is simply because conditions need to be just perfect to create a fossil and also because we’ve only been looking for them since the 19th century. The fact that we have any “links” at all is better proof for evolution than for intelligent design anyhow. Fossil study has been a large part of proving the theory of evolution and has done nothing (nothing at all) to detract from it.

3. For the first part of question 3, you’d be better off just searching “cell biology” in wikipedia. There are tons of people who can explain the complexity of the single cell. It’s even offered as a major in most American universities. As for where the cells came from. Good question. There are several ideas about this. For the short list, I found this site:

http://www.whatislife.com/issues/issues-origin.htm

There’s even a newer idea about bacteria coming from a passing comet. Pick anyone of the numerous guesses out there and that idea will be at least as provable but infinitely simpler and more probable than the existence of an intelligent designer that would have to be infinitely more complex than your shoulder or even the sum total of all your parts. It’s just easier for some people to get hung up on the intelligent designer aspect because everything they’ve dedicated their lives to has been predicated on an intelligent designer existing.

Mission Dog said...

Mike,

But where does the shoulder come from? They have to squeek out of something. It's still too complex to happen by chance.

Fossils do not show transitional forms and am I supposed to believe that all transitional forms were eaten and digested and this explains the absence of them in the fossil record.

I am not sure we should relay on Wikipedia as a bastion of accurate information.

Bacteria on a passing comet? Hmm. Does bacteria live in the deep frozenness of outer space (more than -400 degrees temperatures) & also on a blazing comet and then somehow miraculously make it through the earth's atmosphere?

Michael said...

"But where does the shoulder come from? They have to squeek out of something. It's still too complex to happen by chance."

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn13694-evolution-myths-evolution-is-just-so-unlikely.html

"Fossils do not show transitional forms and am I supposed to believe that all transitional forms were eaten and digested and this explains the absence of them in the fossil record."

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part1a.html#gaps

"I am not sure we should relay on Wikipedia as a bastion of accurate information."

Okay, good point. Even if you are only dodging the fact that cellular biology is easily understood. New answer: Check out any encyclopedia written after the 19th Century. (For a fun exercise, check with wikipedia after you've done this to find out how accurate the entry is.)

"Bacteria on a passing comet? Hmm. Does bacteria live in the deep frozenness of outer space (more than -400 degrees temperatures) & also on a blazing comet and then somehow miraculously make it through the earth's atmosphere?"

Is this more or less likely than an omniscient, omnipresent creator that would have to be at least more complex than than the human body/consciousness? I say more, you say less. But then again, you start by believing in a supernatural creator and move from there. I start with natural reality and see no need for one.